Madgod Myths
by Wonkaverse
Summary: Stories about our favorite, cheese-loving, intestine-skipping daedric prince of madness.
1. Descent into Madness

**Disclaimer** : We do not own anything from the Elder Scrolls series.

 **Author's Note:** Sheogorath is perhaps one of the most intriguing characters from Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. We're just giving him more screen time.

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Long ago when the world was new, and the Nine Divines reigned over the world in peace and prosperity, the daedra were beginning to realize their true powers and forged, by the powers of dark majick, objects of tremendous and corrupting power. They often used these objects to tempt and lure mankind into doing their mischievous bidding. One of these daedra, Azura, created a stone that could trap living souls within it. This was the first soul gem, and it was called Azura's Star. In later days, wars would be fought over this mysterious object, and it would pass through many hands until being locked away in a vault. But this is the story of the first man to be corrupted by Azura's Star. His name was Sheogorath.

Though he is best known today as the daedric prince of madness, he had not always been that way. Even he himself had forgotten his early days, back when he had been a human. He had probably been the sanest of all people in his region, and it was for this reason that he thought he would be able to use Azura's Star without falling under its corruptive influences. He was wrong. As a young scholar, he sought out Azura's shrine, eager to prove his knowledge and mettle. Much to his surprise, Azura gave him the Star without asking as much as a single favor. _That_ was unusual for a daedra, but Sheogorath was too enthralled by his prize to take this into account. His next task was to capture a soul. He was a very moral man, so it was no small dilemma for him to bring himself to kill someone in order to harvest the soul. He attempted to slaughter lesser creatures like sheep and chickens, but the Star did not seem to be receptive to their petty souls. It was not until he was taking a walk in the fields did he get a chance to take a human soul.

He was strolling through rows of corn when he came across three children who were playing hide-and-seek. There were two girls and one boy. Sheogorath recognized the girls as the daughters of the local farmers, but the boy he only knew as an orphan. He smiled at the children as he realized that this was his chance to take a soul that no one would miss. He bid the girls to hide, saying that he would make sure the boy counted without peeking. When the girls disappeared through the cornstalks, Sheogorath took his chance and leapt on the boy, who got out no more than a startled gasp before he died. The Star caught the soul, and that was where Sheogorath's descent into madness truly began. He used the energy in the Star to create a magic Staff of Flame. It became his prized possession, and he became a renowned and respected wizard. But that ended when the soul of the boy he had killed rebelled against him, making the staff itself erupt in flames. The resulting fire engulfed both Sheogorath and his house, and he was killed as his house and possessions were reduced to ash and cinders. All that remained was the Star, and Sheogorath's soul was caught inside it.

The Star was buried underneath the rubble, and as the years passed the rubble was covered with dirt that became overgrown with all different manners of plants and trees. Sheogorath was all but forgotten, and before long he was remembered only as the crazy wizard who had died in a mysterious accident. The whole time, however, Sheogorath's soul was still very much alive, and it was trapped in the Star.

When he first regained consciousness after being soul-trapped, he was surprised to find himself in a dark forest that was lit only by wispy, floating balls of bluish light that hung in the air overhead. The trees were black and leafless, their jagged branches clawing at the starless sky. Sheogorath distantly recalled being burned to death, and he wondered for a moment if he had been taken to one of the daedric realms to be tormented for eternity, as punishment for murdering the boy. But after wandering the dark forest for a while, it became apparent that he was not in a daedric realm because there was no one else here. He was alone.

Days passed, but he did not know this because it was always night. The sun never came up in this world. There were no birds to greet the dawn, or crickets to sing in the night. The only sound was a faint humming that came from the glowing orbs, which only disappeared when Sheogorath tried to touch them. He could not sense the passage of time. He did not grow hungry or thirsty, and he never felt tired. But eventually the constant darkness and isolation drove him over the brink of his sanity. He began to hear voices, and see things that weren't there. Sometimes he even smelled things that weren't there. At some point he started having entire conversations with himself, and by the time he became comfortable with his psychosis, it was as if his delusions materialized and became really real. Embracing this, he envisioned the dark forest into a shimmering land filled with plants and stones of various, startling colors. He created a gleaming castle made of purple stone that was filled with every luxury imaginable. He built a village and populated it with people who were various manifestations of his insanity, but that didn't bother him at all. Sometimes he even played all the parts. And with everything that he created in this little world of his, his insanity grew, and so did his power.

He did not know it, but the daedric power that had gone into creating the Star was gradually seeping into him, changing him. In the outside world, the Star had become black with the corruption of the soul within it, and after hundreds of years buried in the earth, it finally broke. Normally a freed soul would remain ethereal and be left to wander the world or be led to an afterlife, but those were cases for human souls, and Sheogorath had become significantly... _different_. He popped right out of that soul gem and found himself in the real world for the first time in centuries. A town had been built up over the buried rubble of his house (though by this point he didn't remember it), and he walked through the town out of curiosity. The people who lived there seemed very solemn and boring compared to the people in the village he created, so he killed a woman and cut her into pieces. He made her bones into flutes, her vocal cords and intestines into lutes, and her skull into a drum. He presented these gifts to the people of the town, who were so disgusted and appalled that they started to stone him. But they found that, to their horror, Sheogorath could not be killed, as his humanity had died already. Sheogorath found this whole thing amusing, and he decided to return the courtesy by imagining a rockslide, and it was so. The entire village was crushed, and Sheogorath went on his merry way, discovering that his abilities from his prison had followed him out into the real world. But what was reality, really?

Sheogorath decided to make his own world that he could share with people who shared in the gifts of his madness. He walked across the Shivering Sea, and he did not stop until he sneezed, bringing an island into existence. He formed the land so that it became like the place he had made within the Star, but it was bigger, brighter, and bipolar. On one side, he crafted Dementia. It was a land of darkness, depression, and confusion. On the other side, he created Mania, a land of sunlight, bright colors, and sweet dreams. In the very center of the island, he made a palace, and around that palace he made a city-half of it Bliss, the other half Crucible. He populated the island with creatures made of the stuff of nightmares and daydreams, and filled the towns with people who were really extensions of himself. The very first of the people was Haskill, who was the manifestation of the man Sheogorath had once been. Then there were the Golden Saints and the Dark Seducers, who protected Sheogorath's kingdom from the darker creatures that came out of Sheogorath's conflicted subconscious. When the work of creating was more or less done, he decided to tour the mortal world to seek out likeminded individuals who could join him in his new kingdom. And whenever he went out, he would open the door, hoping that unwitting humans might wander in and partake of the abundance of madness in his realm.


	2. Becoming a Daedra

**Disclaimer** : We don't own Oblivion, in case you didn't know that already.

 _Author's Note_ : Thank you for the reviews! We'll keep adding as long as we know readers like it!

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Even though the mortals acknowledged Sheogorath as a daedric prince, the daedra themselves needed some convincing before accepting him as one of their own kind. In fact, those of the daedra who specialized in order, like Hermaeus Mora and Peryite, actually despised Sheogorath for his erratic and eccentric behavior. One day, the most refined of the daedra gathered in the library of Hermaeus Mora to discuss what should be done about this perplexing, immortal thing. In attendance were Azura, the daedra of day and night, who had created the very Star that made Sheogorath into what he was now (but he had forgotten that entirely), Hircine, the prince of the Hunt, Merida, the daedra of Life Energy, Peryite, the prince of pestilence and strict order, and of course Hermaeus Mora himself. They discussed ways to get rid of Sheogorath, or at least some way to control him. But they could not think of a way that had not been tried already. The mortals had tried everything from staking him in the heart to burying him alive, none of which had been effective in the slightest. And even the immortal Sithis had directed the Dark Brotherhood to decapitate Sheogorath, but that had only given the madman an opportunity to say he truly _had_ lost his head while his body calmly picked it up and screwed it back in place.

The debate went on and on, when who should appear through a door but Sheogorath himself. The daedra stared hostilely at him, but he didn't seem fazed at all.

"You ever hear that saying that your nose itches when someone is talking about you?" he asked. "Well, my nose is itchin' like it'd been sucked dry by a swarm of flea-ridden mosquitoes carrying poison ivy! Can mosquitoes even have fleas, I wonder? Or if a mosquito sucks a creature's blood, could a flea suck that blood out of the mosquito? Would the mosquito have an itch afterward? And what if—"

"SILENCE!" Hermaeus Mora boomed. His voice seemed to come from everywhere because his very essence was contained in his library. Sheogorath smiled.

"As you wish." He waved his hand, and all of the daedra became deaf. They screamed and roared at the top of their immortal lungs, but they could hear nothing. They rose from their places and leapt toward Sheogorath, but he only held his ground and laughed as he pointed at each of the daedra. Hircine turned into a chicken, Merida became a cow. Peryite became a rat, and Azura turned into a bush. Hermaeus Mora was booming obscenities at Sheogorath, who only smiled placidly at the new forms of the daedra. After a while, Mora grew weary of shouting and stopped. Sheogorath appeared to wake from a daydream.

"Oh, I'm sorry—were you saying something?"

Mora spluttered in rage, but Sheogorath waved a hand and silenced even him. "Relax, your lordship. I'll be leaving shortly, and then everything will go back to the way it was. Just remember to mind your manners and not gossip about people behind their backs. It's extremely rude, you know."

And as abruptly as he appeared, he vanished. The daedra regained their previous forms and grudgingly came to a consensus. From that day on they reluctantly accepted that Sheogorath was indeed worthy of being considered a daedra, and have done their best to avoid him ever since.


	3. The Wabbajack

The madness continues. Onward!

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One day, Sheogorath, the daedric prince of madness (or "madgod" as his demented followers had taken to calling him) decided it was time to manifest his powers in an artifact, as all daedra are inclined to do. So he wandered into the palace garden to look for something to imbue with his powers. He picked up an alocassia fruit. "I could make a Fruit of Insanity!" he cried to himself. "Or maybe bake it into a pie. Insanity Pie? A Pastry of Paranoia?" He bit into the fruit and chewed thoughtfully before tossing the rest over his shoulder. Taking a few more steps, he came across a large fungus that was oozing a black, tarlike substance. Sheogorath took some in his hands and marveled at the disgusting stickiness. "Silly Slime!" he shouted to no one in particular. "Or _Super_ Slime! A mortal could coat himself in some and be gifted with some of my powers! Ha!" He shook his head and laughed, as the slime in his hands was burned away by supernatural flames. "In all seriousness, though, I can do better than that." He walked past bushes with psychedelic flowers, a pond filled with giant, spiny frogs, until he finally came to an old, gnarled willow tree that looked weathered but otherwise normal…and therefore out of place in Sheogorath's whimsical world. Its dark boughs were twisted into surreal shapes, and at some point lightning had scored a deep gash into its trunk. It was amazing it was still alive, and Sheogorath smiled. He could identify with this tree, being old and misunderstood, and clinging fiercely onto life even though it was insane to do so. Yes, this would do nicely as the base for his object of power. He took hold of one of the tree's straighter branches and tore it from the trunk with no more than a tug. He crafted the wood with his hands like it was clay, and within moments he was holding a curious staff that bore a wide-mouthed face on the handle.

"I dub thee the Wabbajack," Sheogorath said in a lordly tone. "What's that?" he held the face of the staff up to his ear and listened intently. "You want to know where I got the name? Well, my dear, I must've dreamed it up at some point. Or it could be the sound you'll make when I beat someone with you. I can't quite be sure. Now, let's go try you out."

He went into the mortal realm to test his object of power. First he came across a band of bandits in the mountains. They ran at him with swords and axes, but he merely pointed the Wabbajack at them and they burst into flames. "That was a bit predictable," Sheogorath noted, scolding the staff. Then he pointed it at the bandits' horses, which were tied up a little ways away. They turned into wheels of cheese, falling haphazardly to the ground. "Much better!" Sheogorath laughed. Next, he traveled across the mountains and into a valley where he found a farm. He pointed the Wabbajack at a cow, and it became a young lady who was naked and looked very confused. Then he pointed it at a chicken, and it froze solid in a block of ice. At this point, the farmer and his wife rushed out to confront Sheogorath, so he used the Wabbajack on them. They became a pretty pair of pigs.

"Well, I do declare you've satisfied my expectations," Sheogorath said to the staff. Then he blessed the cow-lady with intelligence and creativity, and gave her ownership of the farm. She thanked him and became a devout follower of the Madgod, and made a nice living selling bacon to the neighboring villagers.


	4. Cheese Quest

More.

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After even the daedra acknowledged Sheogorath as a true daedric prince, the Madgod moved out of obscurity and gained many new followers. Some served him in the mortal realm through art and music and architecture, while others sought to be transported to the Shivering Isles in order to live near the object of their worship and receive his blessings directly.

One day, a Khajit follower by the name of J'deena prayed at the newly built shrine of Sheogorath and asked that she might be taken in to the Shivering Isles. She was not surprised when the statue above the shrine spoke, channeling Sheogorath himself.

"Before you can come live with me," he told her, "You must prove you are worthy. I can't let just anyone in, you know."

"I will do anything," she replied devoutly. "What is your task?"

"It will be very dangerous," Sheogorath warned. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Absolutely," J'deena said firmly.

The statue seemed to smile. "You must bring me…cheese."

"Cheese?" J'deena echoed. "That's all?"

"It must be made from ogre milk."

J'deena did not reply for a long moment. Ogres were perhaps some of the most dangerous creatures to live in the wilds of Tamriel. It would be no easy matter to capture one, much less milk it. She thought about declining, but the task had been given and it was too late to turn back.

"I will do my best," was all she said. Then she bowed to the shrine and left.

Three weeks later, she returned to the shrine looking quite different than before. Her fur was disheveled, her clothes tattered, and her eyes wide open and darting everywhere suspiciously. She was carrying a little package wrapped in paper, no larger than an inkwell, which she placed on the altar before the shrine.

"I have done what you asked," she said to the statue of Sheogorath.

"Did you really?" Sheogorath replied. "Because that doesn't smell like ogre cheese at all, and I know my cheeses! You've brought me a bit of goat's cheese to try and fool me!"

I'm sorry!" J'deena cried, falling on her face before the shrine. "Every time I found an ogre, I tried to capture it but they kept dying before I could milk them!"

Sheogorath laughed hysterically. "You were actually going to try it?! Don't you know that all ogres are male? They are born from the teeth of other ogres that get buried in the soil!" The laughing calmed to a fitful chuckle. "You've amused me, mortal, and that deserves at least some kind of a reward. In addition to me not killing you, or striking you blind, I will allow you to peek into my world. But since you could not bring me what I asked, you can't come in. At least, not yet. I have opened a doorway in the Niben Bay. Go there and see."

J'deena was angry that she had been fooled into pursuing an impossible task. But she knew it was equally foolish to not obey an immortal. She traveled to the Door, where an Imperial guard was stationed.

"Stay back!" he warned. "We don't know where this came from or where it goes! It's most likely the work of a daedra!"

J'deena ignored him. She approached the Door and stared through it. She saw the Shivering Isles and forgot her anger. In fact, she forgot everything—where she was from, the things she had done, even her own name. From that day forward, all she knew was that she was a follower of Sheogorath and the Door, which she could never pass through but she could never leave.


End file.
